


like petals between teeth

by R_Gunns



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Brain Damage, Disabled Character, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Recovery, Speech Disorders, Will add more tags as I go along
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-15
Updated: 2017-10-12
Packaged: 2018-11-14 15:18:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11210769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/R_Gunns/pseuds/R_Gunns
Summary: Andrew doesn’t manage to get between Riko and Neil in time to prevent the racquet coming down on his skull. Neil is rushed to the hospital, Andrew and the rest of the team not far behind.Neil awakens a day or two later to a killer headache and the inability to speak.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I don't have a TBI but I do have some of the associated processing disorders that it can cause, so some things in this fic will be from real experience, and other bits from research. If I get anything horrendously wrong, please let me know. 
> 
> Enjoy :)

Time passed like an eternity. There was Riko, face contorted with frustration and rage and above all else _fear_ , his racquet held above his head like a scythe; there was Andrew, far across the court, his mask of indifference cut through with vicious fury, running for them but so, so far away. There were the other teammates, mostly oblivious, but the expressions of those facing their direction were frozen in horror. And then there was Neil, on his knees, exhausted and for once not quite fast enough, not where it mattered in the end. The racquet came down on Neil’s skull, and the darkness that swallowed him was absolute.

For the others there was no pause, no moment of inaction, simply because Andrew didn't allow it. He bowled into Riko still in full gear, the weight of him sending them both crashing to the ground and from then it was all the Foxes could do to pull Riko off him before there was even more damage done. In the end it took Matt, Nicky and Wymack together to get him off Riko, and to _stay_ off, though ultimately it was Nicky’s pleading that got his attention.

“- _Neil_ , go check on Neil, Andrew, we can sort this, he needs you, pl-” When it was clear he wasn't going to immediately go for Riko’s throat again, they collectively let him go, allowing him to move towards the crowd that surrounded Neil. There were already security guards and police escorting Riko off the court by this time, so they turned towards the crowd too, mostly Foxes, but a couple of Ravens and a few security guards watching with grim faces as the medics worked on Neil.

“Still unconscious, pulse okay,” one of the women said, peeling back Neil’s eyelids to flash a torch across them, “Only one pupil is responsive, and the size unequal, so possible TBI, we’re gonna need to get him to the hospital ASAP.” While she spoke two other medics had been laying out a stretcher and carefully wrapping a neck brace around Neil’s neck. Wymack turned away as they lifted his limp body onto the stretcher, remembering the last time Riko had hurt Neil and cursing himself- for what, he wasn't sure, locked outside of the court as he was he’d never have been able to reach them, but he hated the feeling of helplessness the situation brought up anyway.

“Up,” the female medic said, and they started to lift the stretcher, walking Neil off the court, “If one of you would like to ride in the ambulance that’s fine, but you need to come with us now, as his injury may be serious and we need to get to the hospital as soon as possible.”

Wymack eyed the rest of the team, huddled together and scared, the roaring of the crowds around them as they filtered out of the stadium, and then finally Andrew, who’s face betrayed nothing, but his fists, clenched so hard his knuckles were bleeding white, and the barely perceptible tremors across his shoulders were enough for Wymack to see how affected he was.

“Andrew, you go with them. Your keys in your locker?” It took a moment for words to register, for Andrew to even look away from Neil’s face before he nodded, flashing a look towards Nicky and following the medics and Neil off the court.

As they disappeared from view, Wymack blew out a breath, raking his hands through his hair. Then he cast an eye over the foxes, thinking about how at the end of all this, they were just kids. Kids who didn’t deserve any of the shit that’s been passed their way.

“Okay Foxes, I know you’re all worried about Neil right now, but we aren’t going to achieve anything by racing to the hospital still in full gear only to find out that it’s going to be hours before we even know anything. So go shower, get dressed. Evidently there isn’t going to be a ceremony, not with this,” he gestured around to where the medics had left with Neil, then at the chaos in the stands around them, “So we can hold it off till another time. Until Neil can join in,” he told them fiercely, unwilling to think that Riko could have taken this from them, from _Neil_. They were silent for a moment, until finally Dan said,

“Okay coach,” and it spurred the rest of them into action.

He grabbed Nicky’s arm briefly before he left, “You crash Andrew’s car trying to get to the hospital too fast and I’ll kill you before Andrew even gets to, you got it?” Nicky only smiled weakly before following the others into the changing rooms. Wymack took a second to make sure his breathing was under control before turning to find Abby watching him.

“He’ll be okay David, he’s a tough boy,” she said, placing a hand on his bicep, grip deceptively strong. He nodded, squaring his shoulders.

“C’mon, there are some officials I need to chew out before we go to the hospital.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At the hospital, they start to find out the extent of Neil's brain injury.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologise for the essay of a note that's about to follow, but I promise it is the first and last of its kind. 
> 
> First, I just want to thank you all for your lovely comments and kudos, I've never had such a fast and effusive reaction to something, and it means the world to me :)
> 
> Second, with regards to the research I’m doing for this fic, I think some things will be hand-waved in terms of what hospital/the intricacies of the short-term medical treatment/insurance etc. mostly because I’m from the UK and don’t know a lot about how you guys do things, but also because I wanted to do my research on the main focus of the story, such as how TBI’s and speech disorders affect people long-term, as well as continuing treatment outside of hospitals. However my memory and attention span are that of a small dog, so if you spot anything glaringly wrong, I probably missed it proof-reading and do let me know. Enjoy :)

The first time Neil had woken up properly was actually the fifth time he’d woken up since being in the hospital. The first and second time had involved a lot of confusion, too many hands holding him down and animal panic until a heavy grip on the back of his neck and Andrew’s firm “ _Neil”_ had calmed him down enough that the doctors could work on him. The third and fourth were still mostly confusion and tense muscles under unknown hands, but Neil had seemed to recognise where he was enough not to need restraints— restraints that Andrew had tried to remove twice before the nurses threatened to kick him out.

“I don’t see how pinning him down is helping,” Matt was saying to Abby, which Andrew agreed with, though he wouldn’t say it aloud. Even without the associated trauma from Riko and everything that happened in Baltimore, a runner like Neil would never have been okay with being strapped down.

“We have to listen to what the nurses are telling us, if he’s confused he might hurt himself. You saw what he was like yesterday,” Abby said, though she didn’t look happy about it, “I’ll talk to someone, see if we can’t get the ones on his ankles taken off at least.” Matt nodded, but didn’t follow her out the room as she left. Andrew didn’t bother looking up from Neil’s face when Matt came over to the side of Neil’s bed, shifting his weight awkwardly, careful not to stand too close to Andrew. Wymack and the rest of the foxes had been taking it in turns to visit Neil over the past few days, all of them anxious to know how he was but most of them clearly uncertain how to deal with Andrew. Like they thought he was going to snap or something.

Which wasn’t completely outside of the realm of possibility, considering the murderous thoughts he had every time someone touched Neil out of— what, comfort? Like Neil, who only tolerated touch from them at the best of times, would be comforted by their hands on him while he wasn’t even aware of it. Andrew privately thought that most of it was them comforting themselves, and he’d told Bee that when she’d visited in the morning, which she had agreed with. She also told him that most people probably weren’t aware of the fact, and that a hand on his shoulder or arm was probably something Neil wouldn’t fault anyone for, which was also annoyingly true. Neil wouldn’t be faulting anyone for much though if he didn’t wake up already.

Bee had also been concerned with the amount of time Andrew was spending in the hospital, but it wasn’t like he hadn’t left— he’d gone home to shower a few times, and had been eating too, though she probably knew it had mostly been candy from the hospital vending machines, because she brought some sandwiches with her to share with him. She didn’t tell him to go home though, mostly because she knew he wouldn’t, but when he told her that with Neil’s history he probably wasn’t going to be happy with waking up in a hospital and he’d need something to ground him, she had smiled at him softly and said, “He’s lucky to have you,” which Andrew scoffed at, but in the end didn’t argue.

Matt was surprisingly tolerable while visiting, grilling anyone he could for updates on Neil’s condition (stable, but the effects of the TBI wouldn’t be clear until Neil woke up properly) but ultimately just standing in the room and watching Neil, the same as Andrew.

“He’s going to be fine.”

Well, mostly tolerable. Andrew finally looked up from Neil’s face, his expression hopefully letting Matt know how unimpressed he was.

“You don’t know that.”

Matt looked ready to argue, but Andrew interrupted him, “I like you better when you’re not speaking.” Which effectively shut him up for maybe five minutes, until Neil made a quiet sound in his throat, his eyelids fluttering as he started to wake up.

“ _Neil!_ ” Matt shot up out of his chair, looking like he wanted to approach the bed, but Andrew figured that the less people around him right now the better, since they didn’t know if he’d be actually awake, or still somewhere inbetween.

“Go find one of the nurses.”

“Uh— okay, yeah. I’ll just-” Matt said, eyes on Neil even as he left the room. Once he’d gone, Andrew turned his attention back to Neil as he woke up, risking putting a hand on his wrist when Neil’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion, or maybe pain.

“Don’t be an idiot, it’s just me.” Andrew said, watching as his expression flattened out, finally opening his eyes though squinting at the sudden light.  Andrew was relieved to see that while a little hazy, Neil’s eyes were tracking him for the first time since the head injury— the other few times he had woken up he’d clearly not been actually seeing his surroundings.

The relief only lasted as long as it took Neil to try and speak though, because when he opened his mouth to speak, his mouth shaping around his name, _Andrew,_ but no sound came out. Frowning, Neil tried again, but the only sound he managed was a short breath that cut off abruptly, followed quickly by another one, then another, and then Neil started to pant like he was going to hyperventilate, the heart monitor beeping angrily behind them. Andrew gripped the back of his neck with his free hand before Neil’s heart-rate got too high and he ended up with a small army of nurses descending on the room.

“Shh, you’re fine, you got hit in the head and there might be some side effects, calm down before the nurse gets here or they’ll sedate you again.” He didn’t have to worry about making Neil feel worse because thankfully Neil’s breathing slowly evened out, going back to normal, the beep of the heart monitor finally reaching something resembling calm. He watched Andrew’s face all the while, holding his gaze until a nurse came in the room, Matt at her heels. In a second his hand was gone from Neil’s neck, but Andrew kept his grip on Neil’s wrist when he felt Neil start to tense as the woman came over to the bed and started checking on his vitals.

“He can’t speak,” Andrew said as she pressed something that made the bed tilt Neil up until he was sitting. Matt looked worried at that piece of information, but the nurse only nodded as she offered Neil some water.

“That isn’t unusual,” she said, then speaking to Neil directly, “Neil, I’m Michelle, your primary nurse. You’ve suffered a head injury, and have been in the hospital the past five days. I’m going to ask you a few questions, do you think you can answer these for me? You only need to nod or shake your head, okay?” Neil’s heartbeat ticked up a little as she spoke, gaze flicking between her and Andrew, but he slowly nodded.

“Okay, do you remember what happened that led you to being here Neil?” she asked, and Neil shook his head.

“That’s fine, most people experience some memory loss with this type of injury, do you remember the game you played that day? I heard you won.” Neil hesitated, then shrugged. 

“You remember some of it?” Neil nodded. “Okay, that’s good, some people lose far more. Now, usually I’d ask you some questions to establish your long-term memory, but I don’t want you to push yourself to try and speak just yet, so I’m going to go and get some things to help with that, and your friends here can take off your restraints if that’s okay with you? Now you’re awake and we know you won’t accidentally hurt yourself.” Neil nodded again, eyes tracking her as she left the room, his muscles visibly relaxing after she left. Andrew watched his fingers flex, dropping the sheets he’d been gripping, white-knuckled. Thankfully Matt stayed back while Andrew undid Neil’s restraints, though he kept shifting anxiously on his feet. Andrew caught Neil’s eyes once he was done, waiting for him to nod a yes before briefly resting his palm against Neil’s cheek, which Neil didn’t hesitate in leaning into, eyes closed. He looked exhausted already, and Andrew would have loved to tell the nurse to come back later, but he knew that checking that Neil’s brain was still working right, especially considering his sudden mutism, was better done sooner rather than later.

“Okay,” Michelle said as she came back into the room with a box full of resources, thankfully not mentioning Neil’s flinch when she entered, or Andrew’s hand quickly moving down to rest on his wrist. “I’m going to ask some more questions to see how you’re doing. Don’t worry if you can’t answer something, I have some tools that may help, but this is just preliminary testing. We’ll talk about the results with your doctor afterwards okay?” She waited until Neil nodded before pulling a clipboard out of her box and launching into it. She started off by offering him a communication board that had Yes/No, the alphabet, and the numbers 1-10 on it, then asked him his pain scale, testing his hearing and vision as well as his reflexes, which all seemed to be okay.

After that she started testing his language comprehension, doing things like showing him pictures and asking him to find the corresponding word on an index card, giving him sentences to read and asking questions about them, or asking him to point at an object that she named in the room. It was slow going, but ultimately Neil didn’t seem to be having any trouble, not until they got to the writing section.  

He did fine copying down the words she told him, or that he read, even if his hands were a little shaky, and generally did okay naming objects too. But then one of the cards, a light-bulb that he’d previously managed to pair with its written name, stumped him. Andrew watched as he paused with his pen hovering over the page, his mouth pulled down in a frown. He shook his head a couple of times as if to dislodge something, which Andrew was worried he might actually achieve if he kept at it, but Michelle caught his attention before Andrew had to intervene.

“Hey, you don’t want to undo the hard work the doctors put in fixing you, do you? C’mon, it’s okay if you can’t remember, let’s move on to the next one.”

Neil agreed, and didn’t do anything stupid like shake his head again, but after that his frustration seemed to get the better of him, finding it more and more difficult to name objects, and sometimes writing down the wrong thing, but mostly Neil’s hand just hovered nervously over the page while he mouthed words to himself. Then she asked him to write a short narrative, “something like ‘the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog’, or ‘yesterday I had coffee at breakfast’, it doesn’t have to be long.”

Neil tried to write something about playing Exy (which he’d tease him for another time), starting with _I went court_ before being roughly scribbled out, then _~~Me and Andrew the drove~~ _ and _~~Me and Andrew drove court~~_  followed by half a dozen variations until abruptly he stopped, growling in frustration and throwing his pen across the room. Matt yelped and dodged out of the way, but Michelle didn’t even flinch, just nodded and wrote something else on her clipboard.

“I know you’re upset Neil,” she said, which Andrew thought was a ridiculous understatement considering Neil was absolutely seething, fingers clenched into shaking fists, angry tears welling up and spilling over. It was a little disconcerting, especially considering the control he usually had over his emotions (reactions to Riko notwithstanding), and Andrew suddenly felt like maybe he should be shielding Neil from anyone seeing, even though Neil would hate him for making a fuss. Instead he traced circles on Neil’s wrist with his thumb, hoping the pressure might help, and once Neil started to calm down tuned back in to Michelle speaking.

“— is the last part and then I’ll let you rest for a bit. I just want to stress that this is very common in people with head injuries, and not necessarily permanent, you shouldn’t get yourself too worked up, okay?” Which was easier said than done, because then she started in on the speech part of the assessment, Neil’s shoulders hunching miserably as she tried and failed to get him to say something. He wasn’t able to name objects, nor count or say the alphabet, and even asking him to say his name garnered no response from him beyond angry grunts. When none of that worked, she tried getting him to repeat words as she said them. Neil mouthed along with her for a while, still silent, until she handed him a card with a cat on it.

“Okay, let’s try this one, _Cat._ k-ah-t, _cat_ ,” Michelle said, and at first it just sounded like he was breathing heavily, but then Andrew started to hear the sound underneath it, the ‘K’ on the out-breath. Andrew could see Matt moving in his periphery, fiddling anxiously with the pen Neil had thrown, and Michelle’s mouth was twitching like she wanted to smile.

It took some time, more frustration, and a whole lot of drawn out “CCCCCah” sounds before he finally hit the ‘T’, but when he did Michelle outright grinned as she wrote something else down, and Matt letting out a happy “Woop!” Neil only slumped back against the pillows, looking for all the world like he’d just played a full Exy game, but the tiny smile he shot Andrew’s way was so full of relief it was palpable.

“That’s really good Neil, that means that you haven’t lost your ability speak, and it’s probably not a muscle issue either. We won’t know the extent of your difficulties, or really how long they may last until we see how you improve over the next two weeks though, but this is a good sign.” Michelle said, packing away the cards and the clipboard, though she left the board with the alphabet on it with him. “I’m going to let you sleep now, okay? I’ll leave that with you to make things easier for now, but in the mean time I’ll organise a PT coming in to check on your muscles, though it doesn’t seem like you’re having any obvious issues there. I’ll also speak to your doctor and we’ll discuss the plan going forward if that’s okay with you?” Neil nodded his acquiescence, but his eyes were already closed, his body slowly relaxing as he fell asleep. Andrew wasn’t sure he’d have been able to stay awake even if she wanted to carry on.

“You should be proud,” she said as she left, “You worked hard today,” which was a little patronising considering all he had managed was saying _cat_ , but Neil’s breathing had already flattened out in sleep so it didn’t much matter anyway. Then it was just Andrew and Matt again.

“He’s okay.” Matt said after a little while, for Andrew, or himself, or maybe just to make it feel real. Neil was— still Neil, not dead, and probably still able to play Exy in the long run, which ultimately also meant not dead. But they didn’t know how long any of this was going to last, or how Neil would deal with it, not really. Andrew eyed the pen that Matt was fiddling with, thinking of Neil’s anger, of the tears that Andrew’s not sure he’d actually ever seen Neil let spill over before. He wondered if it was because he was dealing with a weakness so alien to him, not just an injury to work through, or if it was a side effect of the head injury.

“I’m gonna go update everyone on what’s happened,” Matt said finally, when Andrew didn’t respond. He gestured at his phone, “Do you uh— do you want anything?”

“No.”

“Right, well. I’ll be back in a bit. See if I can find where Abby went to as well.” Matt kept glancing at Neil as he left the room, as if reminding himself that he was okay. Andrew could unfortunately relate, still replaying the moment Riko’s racquet had come down on Neil with awful vividness, not entirely sure what he would have done if Wymack and the others hadn’t pulled him off, if he’d be stuck in prison right now while Neil was here alone. Still, the thought of finally ridding the world of Riko was satisfying enough that it occupied him for the rest of the afternoon sat by Neil’s bed, hand on his wrist, waiting.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There’s no significance to the word cat other than it being a relatively easy word to sound out, and avoiding starting with sounds at the front of the mouth (D, S, T etc.) that are harder for people with speech disorders.
> 
> The assessment the nurse does and the resources she offers Neil are all real things.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some time passes. Neil struggles. Andrew helps.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oops, sorry for the long wait and that this chapter is kind of short. I graduated/had my birthday/got sick/went to pride/moved house/got diagnosed with adhd in a very short period of time, and things have been pretty hectic! 
> 
> This chapter is exploring as Neil transitions from the hospital back into the real world, the next chapters will start to follow Neil coping with daily life and stuff. A couple of light warnings in end notes if you need 'em. Enjoy :)

Neil felt like he was in limbo. Or purgatory, or whatever you called a person who was both alive and maybe possibly dead. It felt like he was back where he started, running and running and waiting for his father to catch up with him. Except that it _wasn’t_. His body was getting stronger by the day, and the PT’s he was working with were more than happy with his physical recovery. So why did it feel like there was a noose around his neck, ready and waiting? Ichirou wouldn’t care if he couldn’t speak, so long as he made Court. Ichirou wouldn’t have cared if he had his _tongue_ ripped out. That wasn’t the issue here.

Which meant that the noose around Neil’s throat was probably his own making. The two weeks since he’d woken up in the hospital had passed like nothing at all; so focused on his therapy, physical and otherwise, he hadn’t much time to spend worrying about what this all meant long-term, but now he’d started he couldn’t stop. Most of his free time was spent sleeping, still easily exhausted and prone to falling asleep after getting worked up. Which was another thing. The lack of control was the worst of it all, not just of his speech, but the sudden inability to control his emotions was disconcerting. He was angry mostly, which wasn’t completely new, but the frustrated tears and the horrible squirming in his stomach, the itchiness of his skin and the shame that went with it all— that was new. He didn’t think he had ever spent so long worrying over thoughts and buzzing with anxiety before, either.

The doctors said it could be temporary, or just an effect of the trauma rather than the actual brain injury, which didn’t much help. They didn’t know much about his speech either, because apparently it took about a month to ascertain what was temporary and what could be long term. For now, all that Neil knew was that he had gained his ability to speak back pretty quickly, which had made the foxes smile and the nurses carefully pat him on the shoulder under Andrew’s watchful eye. But the smiles had quickly become strained and wobbly when the stuttering over letters and the forgetting words didn’t get any better. His voice was stronger, his writing and his reading good too, but the other things were sticking. Before he had only been worrying about getting his words out right, and trying not to cry again in front of the foxes, because the two times that had happened so far had been enough for a lifetime, and Nicky still had a light bruise on his arm from where Andrew had shoved him out of Neil’s room. But now he started thinking about Ichirou, and Court, and what the hell kind of public figure would he be if he couldn’t speak more than half a sentence out loud without messing it up—

“Stop it.”

Neil looked up from his hands, clenched in tight, white-knuckled fists. Andrew was watching him, probably had been for god knows how long.

“What?” Neil asked. Instead of repeating himself, Andrew hovered his own hands inches above Neil’s, a silent question. “Y-y-y-yes,” Neil said, thankful that he could manage that at least. Andrew’s eyes flicked from Neil’s face to his hands, then back again. He slowly uncurled Neil’s fists with his own fingers, so careful with him that Neil felt his eyes prick, until they lay flat on his thighs, palms up. Red half-moons were blooming a bright red against his skin, some of them beading with droplets of blood.

“Don’t do that,” Andrew said. He used a wet flannel that Neil hadn’t noticed before to clean up the little spots of blood, then tossed it to the end of Neil’s bed before tracing his fingers softly over the marks on his hands. “Don’t do that to yourself. It’s hard, but you’re through the worst of it, okay? You’re going to be fine.”

Neil managed to choke out some mangled version of Ichirou’s name in response, embarrassed but too upset to be able to get out more than that. Thankfully Andrew seemed to understand what he meant though, because he shook his head, taking Neil’s chin in his hand and catching his gaze, intent.

“Who cares if you can’t speak,” Andrew said, making Neil flinch a little, but Andrew only gripped his chin harder. “No, listen. Your body is getting better, right? You can still play Exy?” Neil nodded as much as was possible with Andrews fingers clamped around his face. “Then who cares. You don’t _have_ to give interviews, and if you want to you can get an interpreter or something. All you need to do is be able to play, Ichirou won’t care about anything else.” Andrew was right, of course. So long as Neil kept his promise of making court, of securing that income for Ichirou, then his personal problems shouldn’t matter.

Andrew was still gazing at him fiercely, waiting for Neil to respond, or maybe just looking for the confirmation in Neil’s eyes that he had calmed down. Apparently seeing enough that he was satisfied, Andrew leaned in until his mouth was a breadth away from Neil’s own.

“Yes or No?”

Instead of stumbling his way through another _yes_ , Neil leaned in to press his lips to Andrew’s, sighing happily at the contact. They hadn’t really been alone enough to do anything since he’d been in the hospital, though not for lack of trying on Neil’s part. Sometimes it hurt a little, how quickly and intensely his feelings towards Andrew had settled in his chest, eating up the emptiness and swallowing him whole. The good hurt though, the kind that reminded him he was real, that _this_ was real.

Andrew pulled back after a moment, ignoring Neil’s whine at the loss. His right hand was still on Neil’s cheek, the other pressed to one of Neil’s stinging palms.

“Nicky only went to get coffee, I am not going to deal with him walking in on us,” Andrew said, shifting from Neil’s bed to the plastic chair next to it. Neil curled his fingers up and around Andrew’s hand briefly, squeezing before letting him go. The verbal _thank you’s_ were beyond him for the moment, though maybe that was more to do with kissing Andrew than his trouble with speaking. He thought Andrew probably understood anyway.

*

Neil was doing— _fine_ , or some attempted version of it at least. In the month since the accident, and after being let out of the hospital, he had worked with the PTs without complaint, and the results showed. Physically, he was just about ready to start training with the rest of the team again for next season. But it wasn’t his body that was the issue. Despite the hours and hours he spent with the speech therapists, and the time he spent alone mouthing words to himself over and over, he’d reached a plateau.

Sure, he’d improved since that first few days when he could barely do more than grunt, but he still struggled with forgetting words, and the stutter was looking more and more like it was a permanent thing. The mood swings, he was still trying to pretend didn’t exist. Neil’s last appointment with his doctor was a lot of reassurances that he’d _achieved so much so far_ , and _things could have been worse_ , and _there was still room for improvement over time_. But in the end the outlook was that going forward, Neil was looking at more of the coping methods and ‘learning to live with’ therapy than he was anything else.

He managed to nod and agree to whatever else the doctor said, but he was struggling to pay attention over the rush of blood in his ears, the hitching in his chest. When he was finally let go, Neil barely refrained from running from the doctor’s office and out the building, but it was a near thing. His body was trembling with the effort of keeping in what he was feeling, dizzy and electric. Andrew looked up from where he was leant against the front of his car when Neil finally stopped in front of him, panting like he’d just played a full game. The cigarette in Andrew’s mouth drooped a little as Andrew scrutinized him.

“What happened?”

“N-n-n—” Neil shook his head, hands coming up to tug at his hair. “I n-n-nnnnn, _f-f-fuck!_ ”

“Calm down,” Andrew said, discarding his cigarette and taking a step forward until he could hover his hand over the back of Neil’s neck, waiting for a shaky nod before he gripped him there hard enough for Neil to pay attention. “You aren’t going to get anywhere by getting yourself worked up. Don’t be stupid. Here,” he reached into his pocket for his phone, opening the notes app and passing it over, “I assume you were trying to say more than ‘fuck’?”

Neil huffed, but took the phone and began to type out what he wanted to say, letting Andrew’s grip on his neck calm him down enough until he was slightly less of a shaking mess. He tilted the screen towards Andrew after a moment.

**dr confirmd what we thouhgt. Prob stuck with stutter n othr stuff. Said 2 move on2 long term therapy**

Andrew’s eyebrows furrowed a little. “You knew that was a likelihood going in.”

He was right, they _had_ talked about what the doctor was likely to say beforehand. But that didn’t make it any easier hearing it. He deleted the rest of the text until it just said **dr confirmd** and looked back up at Andrew.

“The confirmation of it upset you, and then you got upset that it upset you,” Andrew said, not a question. Neil shrugged, embarrassed, but was thankful that Andrew could read him so well. It would have been easy to resent Andrew for the way he managed to understand Neil better than he could himself sometimes, but in the weeks since the accident Neil had found solace in the way they could still communicate even without words. Truthfully he had been avoiding the rest of the foxes for that reason: the effortlessness in his and Andrew’s interactions made the way he struggled with the rest of the foxes that much more evident. Mostly it was the same mix of overbearing worry and the way they didn’t quite know how to deal with Neil when he was anything other than ‘fine’.

Neil, who found more comfort in Andrew’s steady calm than anything else, struggled to navigate the emotions of his friends. Even Kevin was being weird, silent about Exy even though he was clearly desperate to get back into training with Neil. Maybe the rest of the team’s insistence on having a break had persuaded him to keep quiet. Regardless, Neil had spent the better part of the month hiding out in their bedroom or on the roof with Andrew.

“You can’t hide forever,” Andrew said after a moment, perceptive as ever. Andrew didn’t care if he never saw the rest of the foxes again, but he knew Neil needed them, and that was what mattered in the end. Neil felt himself warm at the thought, and didn’t fight the small upturn of his lips. Seeing Andrew’s expression, he took a quick step backward to neatly evade Andrew’s hand reaching out to shove lightly at his face.

“Your face is stupid.”

Neil only smiled wider.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for accidental & 'light' self-harm (Neil grips his fists so tight he cuts his nails into his palms a bit), and for some thoughts bordering on internalised ableism, though again these are pretty light.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are steps backward and steps forward. Andrew talks to Bee, then he talks to Neil.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your patience with me, and your lovely comments that keep me going. :)
> 
> Brief and vague mention of the incident w/ Drake in TRK.

Andrew had spent a lot of his childhood reading anything he could get his hands on. Some of his foster parents were nice enough to give him the hand-me-down books of the other children that had passed through, but most of the time it was whatever he could find lying around the foster homes, the library at juvie, or the waiting rooms at his therapy sessions. The latter two mostly consisted of thriller and romance paperbacks with the odd classic that was yellowed and finger-worn with age. The foster homes tended to have more of the same, though some had more children’s books, others more historical novels or famous athlete’s ghost-written autobiographies.

He remembered all of them regardless of whether he had enjoyed whatever it was he was reading. One of the foster homes, no worse but certainly not better than many of the others, had a whole shelf dedicated to gardening books. A long-since given up hobby if the state of their garden was any indication. Andrew didn’t stay there long enough to read more than the first book he had picked up, but the contents of it stuck with him still, an encyclopaedia of garden plants; their lifespans, the best time of the year to plant them, how often to water. It was dull reading for a ten year old, but Andrew couldn’t help but remember each of the little descriptive boxes in vivid detail.

The chapter about Hibiscus plants stuck in the back of his mind in the months after Neil got out of the hospital. Like a pink Rosemallow, the summer months were delicate but sprawling, loud and showy, but mostly they were just  _brief_. Reading about how the flowers bloomed and wilted in the space of a day, Andrew had wondered if all that work could ever be worth it, for beauty that was so ephemeral. 

So when the months finally settled and the dust lifted, or the petals wilted, or whatever mixed metaphor revealed the passing of time, Andrew took stock of the flowerless plants: took stock of Neil. Neil who had been pushing and wrestling his body back into shape to play Exy, who hadn’t missed a single session with the speech therapist Betsy had recommended, who had spent the summer socialising with the Foxes and kissing Andrew and smiling and smiling and smiling. Neil, who wore his emotions on his sleeve but kept his heart nestled between his rib cage, as far from prying eyes as he could get it.

If he was someone else, Andrew might feel something close to hurt that Neil thought he could pretend with Andrew as he did the rest of the foxes. Instead he spent those wilting months watching Neil and how exactly he’d managed to convince them he was fine. The way Andrew figured it, in the absence of a need (or want, maybe) to find another identity, Neil had instead fashioned _himself_ into a mask, hiding and not-hiding, taking ‘Neil Josten’ as the foxes new him and using their expectations as a smokescreen for whatever was simmering below the surface. Neil Josten wasn’t perfect, he wasn’t easy or meek or anything like the Neil he’d pretended to be when they first met him, but he also wasn’t quite the person he was currently presenting himself to be.

Here was the thing. Neil wasn’t _quiet_.

-

Andrew had read a thought experiment about Occam’s razor once. Two men walked into a room, and only one of them left, skin painted red. What happened?

Here was another: four men walked into a room, and three of them left, skin painted red. What happened? Would the bloody scratches on the man left behind give more sense to the story? What about the knives hidden alongside a bed, unused? The jagged smile on one of their faces, a matching wound at his temple?

Andrew thought about Occam’s bloodied razor often, and had decided long ago that the simplest explanation didn’t always mean the most truthful one. _Especially_ when it came to Neil Josten, liar by nature, or trade, or by the fingerprints his mother left behind on his clay-soft skin.

The simple explanation was that Neil was enjoying his physical and mental recovery regardless of the fact that he rarely said more than a word to the foxes, preferring instead to write whatever he wanted to say, or content to just watch and listen. Then there was the alternative. There was Neil’s hands clenched claw-like around his exy stick, refusing to take a break. There was the almost imperceptible shaking when he was forced to say anything out loud. There was backsliding into old behaviors, into hunching shoulders and ratty, too-big clothing.

Andrew had spent almost his entire previous session with Betsy talking about Neil, something he usually refused to do unless she prompted - he didn’t want to take up her time with something as trivial as _boy_ _talk_. Even if she would have said something like _your relationship with Neil isn’t trivial_ , and maybe some time in the future Andrew would take that thought and turn it over like a sea-stone between his fingertips, coming to the conclusion that Betsy might just be right. For now though, it was set aside with the half-dozen other pebbles and stones marked _Neil_ _Josten is a problem_ in favor of those that said _Neil Josten is a liar._ There was some overlap.

So Andrew told Betsy about Neil’s too-wide grins, his straining muscles and the shadows under his eyes that spoke of more than just physical exhaustion - they were the same shadows Andrew often saw under his own. He told her about the way Neil open his mouth like there was a thousand-and-one things he wanted to say, but then his shoulders would slump and his mouth would shut, and that would be that. Neil was infuriating and obsessive and a dozen other adjectives, but he wasn’t _quiet._

(Betsy, who by this point knew Andrew better than anyone else, listened to his logical arguments and his angry sighs, and heard the undercurrent of _I don’t want to lose him again_ that he wasn’t yet ready to put into words. She also knew that now wasn't the time to confront that.)

“Neil went through a very traumatic event,” She said instead, “And many people who develop speech impediments don’t like to speak–”

“Neil is different.” Andrew interrupted, uncharacteristically sharp. Something he hadn’t done to her since their first sessions together. The adamance in his voice on the other hand, the absolute belief in the truth of what he said - that, she was familiar with.

“Neil has been through a lot, and come out of it a stronger person. I can’t make a call on whether this is different without talking to him Andrew, but I think you would agree with me if I said that this is a very different injury than what Neil is used to. His independence is very important to him, and he might feel that the stutter has taken that away.”

Andrew was quiet for a long moment, mulling that over. Bee was right that Neil’s stutter was an entirely different animal to the physical injuries he was used to. Pain could be pushed past, fear could be molded into something more useful, but a stutter was intangible. More than that, it wasn’t something Neil could hide – like Lola’s marks on his cheeks, like the ice-blue of his eyes, the world saw this part of him whether he wanted them to or not. It would take more than a few years with the foxes for him to truly shake the runner from his skin, if he ever did. Until then, visibility would always be a problem for Neil, and this was no different.

What a thoughtful parting gift left behind by Riko before his convenient ‘suicide’ prevented all the complications that would have followed. Andrew wasn’t the sort of person to wish for things, but if he was, having a hand in that would have perhaps been one of them.

“Andrew?”

Bee’s voice, soft but firm, brought him back to the present. He was already feeling drained from their session, so he set down his empty cup and leaned back in his chair.

“I want to talk about something else now,” he said, and Bee nodded, unquestioning.

“Okay, what else would you like to talk about?”

-

“Truth for truth?” Andrew asked Neil later that night, perched on the roof together with their fingers just barely brushing where they rested on the ground. Andrew felt Neil’s eyes on him, but kept his own forward, watching the lazy trickle of smoke from his cigarette. He didn’t have to wait long.

“Sh-sure,” came Neil’s voice a moment later, quiet but lacking the shaky anxiety that would permeate his words whenever he was forced to use them in front of anyone else. Andrew pushed aside the knot of feelings produced any time Neil demonstrated how easily he trusted him for the moment.

“When you told me you would stop hiding, was that a lie?” he asked, finally turning his head to face Neil. Neil’s eyes widened a fraction, but he didn’t pretend not to know what Andrew was talking about.

“I d-d-didn’t a-ac-actually say I would out l-loud.” Neil said, but clearly knew from the look on Andrew’s face that he wasn’t going to accept that answer. He let out a frustrated huff and scrubbed a hand through his hair. “It’s easier. T-to just b-b– to not s-speak.”

“Is it?” Andrew had no doubt that it was physically easier to just not speak, but even when Neil’s survival had hinged on him being quiet he hadn’t managed it. Neil’s breath had caught on the way out though, and Andrew could see the tell-tale signs of a panic attack on his peripheries. He took Neil’s cigarette from him and stubbed it out so he could maneuver him around until they were facing each other, one of Neil’s palms pressed to his own chest, the other to Andrew's.

Instead of talking about it, he said, “Your turn,” and waited for Neil to pull himself away from the precipice. His hand curled in the material of Andrew’s shirt to keep hold of him while his breathing slowed.

“I d-d-don, I d-don–” Neil paused, consciously evening out his breathing before trying again. “I d-don’t h-have one. C-credit?” His smile was wobbly at best, but Andrew nodded, allowing the offered truth for what it was. They were silent for a little while, their only point of contact Neil’s hand still on Andrew’s chest. Andrew took the time to light another cigarette, holding it close to their faces between drags so that Neil could catch the smoke as it drifted away into the darkness. Finally coming to some sort of decision, Neil carefully let go of Andrew’s shirt and hovered his hand over the side of Andrew’s face.

“Yes or n-no?”

“Yes,” Andrew said, and very carefully didn’t lean his head into the hand that cupped the side of his face, thumb pressed against his cheekbone. Neil leaned forward after a moment to press a kiss to the corner of Andrew’s mouth, then brushed his lips across Andrew’s nose in the briefest of kisses, far too fond. Andrew rolled his eyes pointedly as Neil leaned back, smile unabashed, speaking before Andrew could up his percentage.

“Everything is s-sim– is s-simple with you. I don-d-don– I d-don’t want their s-s-sym-sym-sympathy. Their e-ex-expectations. ”

It clearly took some effort for Neil to get that out, but the improvement since the weeks after the head injury was obvious – he was clearly working hard with his speech therapist, and Andrew was struck again by how he was the only person who got to see that.

“I won’t make you talk. But you hiding from everyone and you pretending to be something you’re not are the same thing. Fuck their expectations.”

It would be enough or it wouldn’t be, and they would definitely have to talk more about this later, but Neil usually responded to a challenge, so Andrew left it at that. He blew some smoke in Neil’s direction when his expression started to look a little too sentimental, before stubbing out his cigarette again and leaning forward for a kiss - Neil’s _yes_ lost between them as he surged forward to meet Andrew in the middle.

-

The thing about hibiscus, the perennial kind – was that after the petals had wilted and the bloom was another year away, the plant left behind was uniquely hardy. It would die back during the winter months, withered and broken, but when spring came, new shoots would grow from a root system that had survived the frozen soil. Andrew wasn’t in the habit of comparing people to plants, and if you asked him to in that moment, he certainly wouldn't give an answer. But he couldn’t help himself finding similarities between the Rosemallow and the runner tucked up close against him anyway.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know how chapter became a soliloquy about hibiscus plants, woops. Anyway, thank you again for your lovely comments! I am getting to a place in this fic where I am realising that I know nothing about the American school system so I preemptively apologise for any mistakes there...
> 
> Oh! Also, with regards to how I write Neil's stuttering, I have done a lot of research, especially just straight up listening to people with speech disorders so that I can write it as accurately as possible. You'll notice that there are stops and starts, moments where he goes in a different direction with a sentence to avoid a word, and places where the stutter gets better or worse depending on if Neil is stressed/calm etc. These are all common issues I noticed and have read about, and wanted to show that to the best of my abilities. With that, or really anything else in this fic (my gardening skills are haphazard and passed on to me by my parents, so there might be some discrepencies there haha), I'm happy to answer questions :)

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [Tumblr](http://rrgunns.tumblr.com).


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